Religion: Saint of the Hard Sell

Advertising men with Trendex
troubles, placement problems or sagging sales now have somebody up
there who likes them; the Vatican last week named St. Bernardino of
Siena as patron saint of advertisers.

For months the prelates of the Sacred Congregation of Rites had pondered
the choice. The saint they chose, it was decided, should be one who
had broken through the mists of medieval ignorance with the learning
that the Church had preserved in its monasteries. But St.

Thomas Aquinas was clearly too rarefied for advertisers, and St. Francis
of Assisi too poor....